The invention relates to a bar code of the type set forth in the preamble of claims 1 and 3, capable of being read with the aid of a reading device, and to an associated reading device of the type set forth in the preamble of claim 6.
There are known various types of bar codes. They consist of a number of lines or bars of different widths which are arranged in parallel with their longitudinal sides and are separated from one another by spaces of different widths. They enjoy great increasing acceptance because of requiring little investment for the scanning process and the character recognition.
From the DIN 66 236 standard there is known a bar code having machine-optically recognizable characters, with each character consisting of a group of bars and spaces, and with the widths of both the bars and the spaces of each character amounting to an integer multiple of one module. Moreover, the length of one intelligence character of this code corresponds to a certain, predetermined number of modules. This code, however, is only machine-readable, i.e., with the aid of a mechanically guided scanner, in order to adhere to the modular spacing which is necessary for safeguarding a faultless reading during the scanning.